Undercover operations, military uprisings and royal visits were part of Battle of Britain Memorial Trust Secretary Patrick Tootal’s daily life during the last of his 33 years’ service with the Royal Air Force.

Now Patrick plans to tell the story of his life as a diplomat in a special online presentation via the Zoom platform at 3pm on Wednesday 25 November.

The former Hercules pilot will outline his remarkable career as an Air Attaché in Madrid and Defence Attaché in Buenos Aires after leaving active service as a Group Captain. 

While in Spain, Gp Capt. Tootal was involved in behind-the-scenes planning for a military operation in which three members of the Provisional IRA were shot dead by the SAS in Gibraltar and was later on hand during Her Majesty the Queen’s visit to Spain, the first ever by a reigning British monarch. 

In 1990 he was sent as Defence Attache to Buenos Aires, which was gradually emerging from military dictatorship under Carlos Menem, the country’s second democratically elected President. He arrived just eight years after the war in the Falkland Islands, which added… Read more